A cheaper, faster version of a college degree

Jul. 11, 2014
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by Mary Beth Marklein @mbmarklein, USA TODAY

by Mary Beth Marklein @mbmarklein, USA TODAY

No one appears quite ready to dismiss the value of a college degree, but cheaper, faster alternatives are gaining credibility in the workplace.

The latest example: AT&T is working with a for-profit online education provider to develop "nanodegrees," its name for a series of courses that will take less than a year to complete and lead directly to entry-level jobs at the company related to Web and mobile applications development.

The coursework, to be launched this fall by online education provider Udacity, will cost about $200 a month. The only prerequisite: the ability to do high school math. A more advanced learner can skip the courses and go straight to a final project.

Though Starbucks grabbed headlines last month for its tuition reimbursement plan for employees who want to complete an online degree program offered by Arizona State University, AT&T's strategy reflects a growing recognition that an academic transcript - or the lack of one - can tell an employer only so much.

The federal government has begun exploring the labor market value of credentials such as apprenticeships, professional licenses and certificates earned outside a traditional college or university.

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For example, the U.S. Census Bureau conducted a study this year that for the first time uses federal surveys to estimate how common such credentials are. It found that more than 30% of adults hold an alternative credential, and some of the largest numbers are associated with the fields of construction, transportation, education and health care.

People who have bachelor's degrees or higher were most likely to have an alternative credential, but people with less than a bachelor's degree who had an alternative credential earned more than their counterparts who didn't, the report found. A 2012 study by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce says the USA would move from 15th to 10th in international rankings of educational attainment if certificates - in fields ranging from health care to cosmetology to aviation - were counted in government statistics.